Don't Blame Blatche For the Nets' Descent

BKN - 94

TOR - 88

Consider the unusual predicament of a reserve who gets promoted to a starting role because of an injury to a teammate, promptly posts All-Star numbers yet finds himself utterly powerless to prevent his team from free-falling through the Atlantic Division standings.

"I know he feels bad," Nets coach Avery Johnson said.

When the Nets beat the Raptors Wednesday night, 94-88, they were once again without starting center Brook Lopez, sidelined with what the team continues to describe as a "mild" sprain on the top of his surgically repaired right foot.

It was his seventh consecutive excused absence, and the Nets were 2-5 without him. Johnson said the team wants to be extremely cautious, even as impatience begins to brew. "He's going to come back at 100%, we've been told, at some point," Johnson said. "It's just not now."

It is unfair to blame Blatche, who had 14 points and nine rebounds on Wednesday, for any part of the Nets' recent stretch of futility. Ahead of Wednesday's game, he was averaging 18.1 points and 8.8 rebounds as an emergency starter. For the season, his "win shares," an advanced statistic defined by Basketball Reference as an estimate of the number of wins contributed by a player per 48 minutes, was a team-leading .198. Lopez ranked third, at .153. The NBA average is roughly .100.

So call Blatche whatever you want—productive, efficient, reliable. A bargain, too, after he signed a one-year, non-guaranteed deal with the team for the league minimum. There is just one problem: The Nets keep losing.

One of the biggest issues is that Lopez's injury set off a chain reaction. While Blatche has played well as a starter, the move has sapped the Nets' depth. Blatche was an invaluable piece of the team's second unit, a group that has been undermanned—and often overmatched—without him.

The other problem is that the Nets miss Lopez's defense. He might not be the most flamboyant rebounder (6.8 per game), but he was making life extremely difficult for opponents in the paint before he went down, averaging 2.5 blocks and affecting countless others. Blatche, for all of his unique skills, isn't a defensive wizard. He had blocked a total of two shots over six games heading into Toronto.

"A lot of times, when a starter is being replaced by another guy, you can't just look at a guy's numbers," Johnson said. "Look at our team numbers. Look at our team defense. Look at how Lopez slows the game down for us quite a bit. When we get into that helter-skelter mode, we can come down and throw the ball into him. We're figuring out a different way to play without him."

Blatche scored a season-high 23 points on 9-of-13 shooting in Tuesday's 100-97 loss to the Knicks, but it was one basket he didn't score that lingered. With the game tied at 91, Blatche appeared to put the Nets ahead with a tip-in—until he was whistled for offensive goaltending. "I thought it was a clean putback, but a lot of my teammates said it was still on the rim," Blatche said.

As the Nets scrambled out of the locker room to catch their late-night charter to Toronto, point guard Deron Williams was among the last to leave. He shouldered much of the responsibility for the team's fifth straight loss. "I don't feel like I've had a good game yet this season," he said.

There was Williams, one of the team's highest-paid stars, sounding utterly frustrated with himself. Blatche, meantime, emphasized the obvious.

"Teams know we're struggling," he said, "so we just need to stay positive."

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